Read Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories for Free Online Page B

a pocket of his jeans.
    Any other guy, he’d open the note to see what it was. But not Jimmy Chang. Like J-C was so accustomed to girls tossing him notes in class, he hadn’t much curiosity what it was the snarl-haired girl in the dark glasses had sent him, or maybe he had a good idea what it was. Kiss-kiss. Kiss-kiss-kiss. The main thing was, J-C hadn’t just laughed and crumpled it up like trash.
    By now Lisette’s mouth was dry like cotton. This was the first time she’d passed such a note to J-C—or to any boy. And the beer-buzz that had made her feel so happy and hopeful was rapidly fading.
    Like frothy surf withdrawing with the tide, the beach is left littered with pathetic putrid crap like desiccated jellyfish, fish heads and bones, hypodermic needles from what the newspapers called medical waste dumped in the ocean off New York City, borne to the New Jersey coast.
    Voices scolded but were mostly admiring, envious— Y’know Lisette Mueller—she’s hot.
    She’d had a half-beer, maybe. Swilling it down outside in the parking lot behind where the buses parked and fouled the air with exhaust stinging the eyes but the guys didn’t seem to notice loud-talking and loud-laughing and she could see, the way they looked at her sometimes, Lisette Mueller was hot.
    Except: she’d spilled beer on her jacket. Beer stains on the dark-green corduroy her mother would detect, if she sniffed at it. When Momma returned home probably that night.
    This Monday, in January—it was January—she’d lost track of the actual date like what the fuck’d she do with the little piece of paper her mother’d given her, from the eye doctor, pres-ciption it’s called, for the drugstore, for the eyedrops. This her mother’d given her last week last time she’d seen Momma, maybe Thursday morning. Or Wednesday. And this was some kind of steroid-solution she needed for her eye after the surgery but the damn pres-ciption she couldn’t find now not in any pocket in her jacket or backpack or in the kitchen at home, or in her bedroom, or—like on the floor by the boots—in the hall where they hung their coats—not anywhere.
    Nowicki was at the door now turned looking at—who?—Lisette?—like a bad dream where you’re singled out—some stranger, and this looked like a cop, coming to your classroom to ask for you.
    “Lisette? Can you step out into the hall with us, please.”
    Next to Nowicki was a woman, in a uniform—had to be Atlantic City PD—Hispanic features and skin-color and dark hair drawn back tight and sleek in a knot; and everybody in the classroom riveted now, awake and staring and poor Lisette in her seat like she’s paralyzed, stunned—“Lis-sette Muel-ler? Will you step out in the hall with us, please”—like waking from a dream Lisette tried to stand, biting at her lip trying to stand, fuck her feet were tangled in her backpack straps, a roaring in her ears through which the female cop’s voice penetrated—repeating what she’d said in a sharper voice and adding personal possessions, please —meaning that Lisette should take her things with her—she was going to be taken out of school—wouldn’t be returning to the classroom.
    So scared, she belched beer. Sour-vomity-beer taste in her mouth and—oh Christ!—what if the female cop smelled her breath.
    And in the corridor a worse roaring in her ears as in a tunnel in which sounds are amplified so loud you can’t distinguish anything clearly—out of the Hispanic woman’s lips came bizarre sounds eiii-dee—if you are Lisette Mueller—come with me.
    E iii-dee — eiii-dee —like a gull’s cry borne on the wind rising and snatched-away even as you strained desperately to hear.
    *
    Turned out, there were two cops who’d come for her.
    If you are Lis-ette Mueller. Come with us!
    Now her head was clearing a little, she began to hear I.D.
    The Hispanic policewoman introduced herself—Officer Molina. Like, Lisette was going to remember this name, let